Re: Dominions 3 News!
Unfortunately, you have to consider indy games as "custom". Consider the price differential between a home-made berry pie and the equivalent from a grocery store. One is priceless, and the other (IMO) is garbage. You can step down a notch, and go to a many-star restaurant for pie... where you'll pay way more for the same thing than at a grocery store, and it will be substantially better.
Any place has a similar cost for ingredients (although the cheaper the pie, the cheaper and crappier the ingredients... they still aren't the primary expense). But expensive (and priceless) pies have a much lower capital investment in production facilities. In the generic case, there is a strict inverse relation between the capital investment in a food product, and its quality.
Personally, I never, ever buy pie, and only eat it when I make it, or my dad makes it. Much like Adam and/or Eve, having tasted the fruit of wisdom, I cannot go back - though I know I would be happier without my new knowledge, as I would be satisfied with anything. But I am a busy person, and I don't have time to make pie... so, I go without.
It is therefore a blessing that some industries - primarily books and software, but also produce, peanut butter, bread, electricity, water, radio, and so forth allow consumers to pay more for low-volume, high-quality items.
At an organic food store, one can buy apples, pears, kiwis, peaches, and many other goods at a higher price than at a conventional store... for stuff that clearly looks worse. Sometimes I buy it, and sometimes I don't. Often it is incomparable (most peaches I eat taste like ****, and most walnuts are old or even rancid, and I'd pay at least triple for good versions of either). I don't have the time or space to grow my own peaches, and I'm thankful that the people who do - and are willing to sacrifice 30% of their yield to forego ethene treatments (the "fruit ripener" that kills chlorophyll, and is responsible for rock-hard strawberries and apple-like tomatoes that dominate the US market) and pesticide sprays - will sell their products on the open market, rather than caving to "industry knowledge".
At a real bakery, they sell real bread, made from ground wheat kernels, salt, water, and usually yeast and sugar/honey/molasses. Most people find this stuff nasty; I love it, and find bleached ultra-fine white flour "Wonderbread" inedible. Normal factory bakeries somehow turn pure **** into a white, fluffy, rectangular solid, and legally market it as "bread", while supermarket and standalone bakeries produce the exact same crap and sell it at a premium, because it is "free-form" or "loaf-shaped". Again, I rarely have the time or will to make bread... so I am very thankful that in the last 5 years, a niche market has arisen to provide real bread to people who know what bread is. Is $5 for a 20-slice loaf that only lasts a week before getting moldy too much, compared to $2 for 50 slices of Wonderbread that will last until Doomsday? No... because the real bread tastes like bliss, and contains actual nutrients, while the Rainbow **** gives you colon cancer and diabetes - and tastes like ***. Not to mention that the loaf of bread weighs 2 lbs (.9kg) while the loaf of imitation bread weighs 1.5 lbs (.68 kg), despite being double the volume.
I could go through all the examples. But at the end of the day, it's personal choice. Most people prefer to use coal power, Wonderbread, rock-hard strawberries, canned/frozen orange juice, LCD monitors, tapwater, console games, television, and fast-food chains. If you are in the minority that believes the alternatives to be superior, regardless of their disadvantages, accept that they will cost more - that's how an efficient (and/or free market) economy works. You should be happy that there is a reasonable price you can pay to get what you want, instead of the popular alternative... in many areas, there is no price - let alone a reasonable one - that will allow you to purchase a superior alternative, simply because most people like the crap they're told to like.
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